It’s weird these thoughts in my head
words spoken to me in the midst
of stacks of books, reams of paper,
and a student load debt I cannot afford
It’s strange this sacrament placed on my tongue
though bitter to the taste and damaging to the bliss
of ignorance and a sheltered life
where I was shrouded in a perpetual state
of nebulous Christo-centric fundibabble
I was liberated into something hard and bright
naked and irreverent to the soft cushion of church pews
no, this place was hard and harsh and loud
for I was delivered out of my ignorance and handed
into the hands of my own responsibility
It is a place of jagged and haggard edges
and where truthes – while constant and vigilant –
were few and further between than the innumerable angels
supposedly adorning the crown of my head
as I lay myself down to sleep
Liberated but not liberalized
the truth doesn’t care what you believe
nor does it care about the slope of your spine
and the drawing down of your smile and the shadows
etched thick and black around your eyes
as the weight of truth rests upon mortal shoulders
While there are pleasures here in abundance
if you’re lucky enough to find a hand to hold
the process isolates men into their own thoughts
the likes of which not even the warmest hand
can pluck us out of when we wander in too far
Who am I to know the thoughts of a King
Sword drawn in utter defiance of the uncertain future?
Why should I know the memory of the slave trod
underneath by the boots of men of my own race
Where do I stand as I visit the Boot Hill
filled with Christians and Jews and Muslims who died
for a God that never spoke aloud to either?
How did we manage to keep from wiping each other out
when the falcon could no longer hear the falconer?
When does the human race break through the surface and come up for air after it’s self inflicted baptism of fire?
To none of these questions do i hold an answer save for the last one.
What happened to me that put lines on my face and gray hair in my beard?
It’s simple a thing, really, no mystery at all I suppose
I partook of the fruit of the tree of good and evil
or as lay people put it – received an education.